Earnings Labs

JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Latonya and I would like to welcome everyone to the JetBlue Airways Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to JetBlue's Manager of Investor Relations, Driss Belmadani. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Driss Belmadani - Manager-Investor Relations, JetBlue Airways Corp.

Management

Thanks, Latonya. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our second quarter 2016 earnings call. Joining me here in New York to discuss our results are Robin Hayes, our President and CEO; Marty St. George, EVP-Commercial & Planning; and Mark Powers, our CFO. This morning's call includes forward-looking statements about future events. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements due to many factors, and therefore, investors should not place undue reliance on these statements. For additional information concerning factors that could cause results to differ from the forward-looking statements, please refer to our press release, 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. Also, during the course of our call, we may discuss several non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures, please refer to the tables at the end of our earnings release, a copy of which is available on our website. And now, I'd like to turn over the call over to Robin Hayes, JetBlue's President and CEO. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Driss, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier today, we reported our results for the second quarter. In the quarter, net income was $180 million, or $0.53 per diluted share. These record results reflect the tireless efforts of our 19,000 crewmembers who consistently deliver the best customer experience in the industry. In recognition of our crewmembers' wonderful service, JetBlue was recently awarded its 12th consecutive Customer Satisfaction Award by J.D. Power. I believe no other airline, and few service companies have earned a similar honor. We are thrilled to announce our intention to further expand our successful Mint experience by amending our Airbus purchase agreement adding 30, A321 incremental aircraft, which is scheduled to…

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Marty and Robin. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This morning we've reported second quarter operating income of $313 million. This represents year-over-year growth of 11%. Pre-tax income for the quarter was $289 million, operating margin was 19.1% and pre-tax margin was 17.6%, improving year-over-year by 1.6 percentage points and 2.1 percentage points, respectively. Total revenue grew 2% in the quarter on capacity growth of 11%. Yield decreased 10% while load factor was down 0.6 percentage points. With respect to costs, the second quarter was another period of remarkable cost control, excluding fuel and profit sharing, year-over-year unit costs decreased 1%. This tops our April guidance range of positive 1.5% to negative 0.5%. Better productivity drove a decrease in salaries, wages and benefits, which on a unit cost basis shrink year-on-year by 0.5%. Maintenance, materials and repairs, year-on-year unit expense growth was also negative. Moving forward, we continue to make progress, amongst other opportunities, to reduce our long-term engine maintenance expense. Turning to fuel. Fuel prices are rising but remain a positive year-on-year. We had no fuel hedges in place in the second quarter and thus no hedge losses or gains. Including taxes, our fuel price in the quarter was $1.43, down from last year's per gallon price of $2.13 or 33%. We increased our hedge position for the second half of 2016, specifically we're now hedged about 25% of our expected second half 2016 fuel consumption. Based on the forward curve as of July 2015, we expect our third quarter fuel price per gallon, including the impact of hedges and taxes to be approximately $1.52 per gallon. We've also modestly increased hedge positions covering 2017 with about 10% of consumption covered. More specific details regarding these hedge positions are in our Investor Update which was…

Driss Belmadani - Manager-Investor Relations, JetBlue Airways Corp.

Management

Thanks, everyone. Latonya, we're now ready for the question-and-answer session with the analyst. Please go ahead with the instructions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session for the investors and analysts. And your first question comes from the line of Andrew Didora of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Andrew George Didora - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Hi. Good morning everyone and thank you for taking the questions. Robin, we certainly appreciate the color you gave around Mint, the success over the past few years. I certainly understand the growth opportunity here. But, I guess, my question and you sort of alluded to it in your prepared remarks is around the decisions to take more A321s and whether that decision was due to losing out to Alaska on VA and the need to compete more effectively on the West Coast, or it was solely a function of kind of the success with Mint so far. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, thanks, Andrew. And that was a long and distant memory for me. So, you've brought all back with the first question but thank you. I think, when we started Mint in June 2014, there were many skeptics and there were many doubters, including many in our company because it was a very big change from where we were, but we felt that there was a very significant opportunity to come in and disrupt the transcon market because at the time, it was suffering from very high fares and a mixed product bag, and it has been an overwhelming success even when we did the original best case, worst case kind of timing case, we've exceeded all of those. And so, we believe that the opportunity is much more significant because we have proven that we have been able to expand the premium market as well. So, we always wanted to build a significant transcon presence. The West Coast is important to us. That's why we did express interest in acquiring Virgin America, but we want to be focused on the parts of the West Coast that we think are going to be profitable and where we can be successful. And we think, transcon for us with our product advantage, by the way which is the hard product but also the product that our crew members give – the number one complimented feature of Mint is the service that our crewmembers give, and the price point, all of those things come together to, I think, allow us to leverage on the transcon, both our very significant East Coast strength, but also our growing presence in markets like San Francisco and LAX. And with the potential merger of Virgin America and Alaska, we have a lot of corporate customers and customers coming to us from those two cities, saying how can JetBlue expand the Mint offering. So we think, all of these things come together. It's been part of our plan really going back several years and it's – we think a very significant opportunity for us. And we know ordering airplanes in the current environment is going to be something that's going to be challenged. But we thought very hard about this and we're very confident of its success just as we were with Boston, Fort Lauderdale and Mint originally.

Andrew George Didora - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Great, that's helpful. And my second question for Marty. I know there are some holidays moving around a bit in 3Q with all the 4th of July travel now in the third quarter, I think the Jewish holidays are shifting out of September into October, what kind of impact can we expect from these shifts on a year-on-year basis, if it's meaningful at all? Thanks. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Hi, Andrew, thanks for the question. I think if you look at the guidance we gave in the prepared remarks, I think what's interesting is that, what we're seeing with respect to the shape of our third quarter seems to be a little bit different than what we're seeing in competitors' results. I think a reason for that is we do have more of a leisure focus than some of our competitors do. And the second thing is, because of our ASM comps, and I believe that those two issues are going to overwhelm issues around holiday shifts. But also for September bookings it's very early to tell right now. We just don't have that much on the books right now. We don't expect a dramatic impact, September versus October versus holidays, but we'll see as the time gets closer.

Andrew George Didora - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Baker with JPMorgan.

Jamie N. Baker - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Hey, good morning. Probably for Rob and Mark, and it does bring up the subject of Virgin America again. I'm wondering, last spring, how did you evaluate the potential returns as you contemplated that transaction relative to how you more recently evaluated your, let's call it, the Go It Alone Transcon strategy that culminated in today's order? I know you can't affect the merger outcome at this point, but can you at least say if the returns associated with today's plan are higher or lower than what you envisioned last spring?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Hi, Jamie...

Jamie N. Baker - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

And if they're better, what the primary drivers are?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. So, Jamie, it's a great question. It was an interesting exercise, needless to say, and it was a fairly unique type of merger opportunity because of, frankly, the strength and symmetry of Virgin and the JetBlue culture. So, that certainly enhanced the execution of that potential transaction. Nevertheless, the rigor around that transaction was clearly looking at revenue synergies and a whole complement of the predictable cost synergies. We are still inclined – our preference has always been for organic growth. It's more controllable. You can manage the risks better. And so, when we were looking at the expansion through this Mint order largely focused on the West Coast, the numbers are actually quite similar to the numbers that we were producing with perhaps a lot less execution risk than the acquisition of another airline. So – and again, it's – it really comes down to this transformative and disruptive Mint product that really does reduce a lot of the risk around it.

Jamie N. Baker - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Okay. Terrific. I appreciate the clarity, I'll move on. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Helane Becker with Cowen and Company. Helane Becker - Cowen & Co. LLC: Thanks, operator. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time. Two questions really. One is can you give us an update on seat densification because I have it in my notes that that was supposed to start this quarter. And I'm just kind of wondering what – because I thought it was all the A321s with the new seats? Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure, Helane. Good morning. It's Robin, I'm going to jump on that one, and then I'm going to pass the baton over to Marty. I actually was over in Hamburg last week with a number of our leaders and also 10 of our in-flight crewmembers who have worked with us on this project for the last 12 months to 18 months. And we did take, indeed take delivery of our first 200-seat A321. It looks fantastic. And that's now currently being fitted out for LiveTV and Wi-Fi and will be entering the system in a few weeks. The A321s are still on track to be configured this year. The ones that we have already, that are high density, they are moving from 190 seats to 200 seats, and the A320 reconfiguration will begin in early 2017. And I will just throw it back over to Marty for a little bit more color on that. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Thank you, Robin, and thanks, Helane. Good morning. Yeah. We're fully on track with the A320 densification as well, and we have no updates to the guidance we gave on the timing or the economic benefit from that. We're very excited about it.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Hunter Keay with Wolfe Research.

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Good morning. Thank you. Appreciate it. So I'm curious why you guys are actually announcing plans to think about adding Transatlantic. Are you looking for reactions based on what your investors, maybe competitors do? Why not just wait until it's ready to go and announce it when it's ready to go? What's the rationale for announcing that you are considering it so far ahead of time. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Hunter. Good morning. How are you? Let me take that. As part of the Airbus purchase agreement, we did negotiate the option to upgrade to the Long Range. So, all we're really announcing today is the flexibility to do that but by disclosing that we have that option, which is something that we are obligated and want to do, it does beg the next question, okay, what are you going to do with it because it's not really too much of a stretch in imagination to figure out where it would go. And we just want to be open and transparent about that because that's who we are and say it's something that we're considering. We haven't made a decision. We don't need to make a decision to the end of 2017, and we'll take the decision based on what's the right business and economic decision at the time. It maybe that we don't exercise any option rights to upgrade to the LR at all, and fly these airplanes in our current network. So, I think what triggered it, Hunter, was nothing cute or clever, just we – obligation to disclose the change in the purchase agreement and wanting to explain a little bit – behind it.

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And then sort of to that, can you talk about the things you're going to look at when you think about – when you actually do this analysis, and then sort of to that as well, are you going to be more inclined to add service on underserved routes? In an all else equal environment, would you be more inclined to add service in markets that are underserved or would you try to look for markets that are potential opportunities to gain share because you think they're overpriced? Thanks. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Hunter. You've already heard enough from me, so I am going to pass it to my friend Marty, and if he misses any bits out, I may comeback.

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

All right. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Well, no pressure. Hi, Hunter. Good morning. Thanks for the question.

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Good morning. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: With respect to as far as how we do the analysis, we have – again we've – this company, we've grown from two airplanes or three airplanes in 2000 up to over 200 today, and the analysis has not changed dramatically from that time period. With respect to whether we have a bias towards underserved markets, I think we are very lucky in that. As a company, we've built six very strong focus cities and they're all unique in their own ways. But one thing that we saw in every one of them was an opportunity of markets that were relatively underserved. And in many of the markets it had high prices. So, our view – I'll take only as an example the Transatlantic, because you brought it up. I view the Transatlantic as it may be one of our growth opportunities because that is a market, although there are a lot of flags flying across the Atlantic, 87% of the capacity across the Atlantic is under one of the three alliances and under various level of antitrust immunity. So what that's created is a very high fare environment. So when we see market, I'll take a great example in Boston, we see markets across the Atlantic that are important business markets that have very high fares, we think that's a great opportunity for us. Go back to one of the things that was mentioned in the prepared remarks about how much we have – how much we believe the premium market has been stimulated in New York-LA and New York-San Francisco that is the JetBlue playbook. We like to go into markets with high fares and stimulate them with lower prices because that gives a great opportunity for us. So, I don't expect anything dramatically different as far as the revenue side. Certainly with respect to again the Transatlantic, which you asked about, there are lots of other factors that have to be involved. But I think, the easy opportunities I think are widespread. And I think it's important to say, we're not making any announcement about Transatlantic service. I think back to Robin's point, this disclosure was basically about a change in our contract. But it would be – I'd be misleading you if I didn't say that the markets – there's a level of attraction over there, with the high pricing. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Hunt, if I may...

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Sure Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I just want to make that – I think chasing market share is in itself a fool's errand. I think what we're looking for is to successfully convince our investors longer-term that sort of a high-single digit growth rate is the right thing for our company. Not only do we have to demonstrate earnings growth but we also have to make sure over a period of time that we can sustain positive unit revenue growth as well because normally, if you don't do that then a high growth rate leads to negative RASM and I think that's some of the challenges that the industry is seeing at the moment. So, when we look for opportunities, we're looking for opportunities that allow us to drive that top line unit revenue growth even at elevated ASMs compared to GDP, whilst also maintaining sort of tight cost control, which I think we are getting better and better at. And, I think those things come together and paint both a very compelling short term and also long term results orientated story. So that's how we think about those opportunities.

Hunter K. Keay - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research.

Okay. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg with Deutsche Bank.

Richa Talwar - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Hey, everyone, it's actually Richa Talwar in for Mike. Good morning. So first, regarding your move in June to cut full year 2016 capacity growth by 75 basis points at the midpoint. I was hoping you could discuss where in your network you're seeing potentially too much supply and needed to trim? And was it just the Puerto Rico cuts that you discussed or was it somewhere else in your network that you're seeing too much capacity? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Hi, Richa. It's Marty. Thanks for the question. The process we went through when we did make the cuts the second half capacity is very similar to the process we're confidently going through and trying to make sure we create the optimal capacity level. And, I think if you look at it, there have been cuts in various types of the network. I wouldn't call out anything specifically. We certainly did do – the one thing we didn't call out in the prepared remarks were the cuts we made to Puerto Rico, which we certainly view as temporary cuts. We hope they're temporary cuts. But there have been cuts in other markets too, very much a focus on off-peak times when the demand might be quite as strong. But the process we go through to continually try to deploy the assets to maximize returns has been very consistent all along.

Richa Talwar - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay. Great. And then, Marty another one for you. You suggested that you're seeing strength in leisure travel, and can you confirm whether that was an accurate interpretation of what you said regarding the leisure market and also give us a sense of corporate travel trends across your network? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Okay. So, thank you with the second question. Leisure, as far as leisure strength, I think the best way to describe it is more from a top down level. If you look at our results and look at our RASMs results, we're – if you look at our results versus the rest of the industry, they do diverge a little bit. Certainly, if you look at the sequential improvements that we're seeing. It also is happening at a time when we are still operating a franchise that is predominantly leisure focus. So, I'm not sure I want to draw the causality between those two, but it's certainly factual that we are seeing some pretty good sequential growth there during a peak leisure period. With respect to the corporate demand, I think the best way to describe it is looking at the data that we see, overall corporate revenue was down for the industry, not just for JetBlue. Our corporate revenue is down good bit less than we're seeing industry corporate revenue. So, we're increasing our share of corporate revenue. But obviously it's a time – where based on what we're seeing for sort of macro revenue trend, there is an overall decline. But I think we're very happy with our corporate performance right now.

Richa Talwar - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rajeev Lalwani with Morgan Stanley. Rajeev Lalwani - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Thanks for the time. I wanted to come back to some of the prepared remarks you made. Can you just reconcile how you're taking up CapEx but taking down growth as we look into next year. Obviously, I don't know the starting points so maybe that's an explanation, but some color would be great?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. By the way, we can actually call you offline to give you a little bit more of the detail of that. But – so, repeat the question again to get the details on CapEx? Rajeev Lalwani - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yeah. I guess, I'm just trying to understand your – it seems like you're taking up CapEx with the aircraft order, but then you're talking about pulling in capacity growth as you go into next year. So, I'm just trying to reconcile why those two you are kind of going in different direction?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. I think the CapEx is more of a longer-term context. The capacity growth that we're talking about, I'm actually not quite sure I understand the question. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let me have a handle of it. I think the point Mark made was that the 2017 capacity we're expecting to be less than 2016 and yet, we're taking more airplanes, so it seems counterintuitive. Rajeev Lalwani - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Right. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: A couple of points. The first one is the additional airplanes that we've announced for 2017 will all come in the backend of next year so we won't actually see that much of them flying. And also, back to a question that Helane asked earlier about the Mod program, we do have A320s in a fairly significant Mod program next year to do the changes from a150 seats to 162 seats, and also enhancing the customer experience. And so, that will also add as a downward drag on capacity. And so, those things together mean that the 2017 ASM level will actually be below what we've seen this year. Rajeev Lalwani - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks Robin. That's exactly what I was looking for. And then the other question, as it relates to setting a – I believe you said a debt to capital target but then you're also taking up your CapEx. So, just kind of pulling that altogether, does that imply that capital returns aren't going to be a material part of the JetBlue story over the next few years?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

I think we'll have – as I indicated, we'll have a lot more detail on that at our Investor Day in November. The sort of – this maybe I think the first time we've actually announced our debt to capital target range and I think we'll probably talk a little bit more around the math behind that in November. But that – we think that range is appropriate. It really does provide us the flexibility fund future opportunities and manage that, our cost of capital, to set us up for a more meaningful capital return program down the road I think more in November. Rajeev Lalwani - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Savi Syth with Raymond James. Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, good morning. I'm just wondering just going back to your unit revenue color, I appreciate the information there. But could you walk me through the kind of unit revenue pressures that you saw in the second quarter, be it capacity growth, tougher comps, kind of weakness in your LatAm region. And maybe just to how those items progress in kind of the third quarter and then into the remainder of the year. I'm just trying to figure out like what's helping the moderation in unit revenue growth? Thank you. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Hi, Savi. It's Marty. Thanks for the question. I think there are lot of issues going on with respect to our unit revenue growth. Do you want me to go over what we said in the prepared remarks about sort of the April, May and June or just... Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: I guess, Marty, what I'm trying to figure out is, so is it the slowing capacity growth that really helps that moderation? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Okay. Great. Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: When do you expect the kind of the LatAm pressures to subside when you can kind of expect the comp pressures to sort of subside I guess? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks. I'm sorry, I have to clarify, just want to make sure I answer the question correctly. Let me go back to the second quarter and what we saw. The biggest issue for us in…

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

At the end of the year on the airplanes. Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Yeah. Let me answer that question on the credit card first. In working with Barclays, we are very optimistic about what we've seen as far as new account acquisition spend, the metrics were all good. The only challenge we have on updating – doing any update to guidance on the credit card, which is why we are not updating our guidance is that, it is a bit of a slow return based on when customers chose to redeem as far as when we – the timing as far as when we recognize the revenue. So we have no change to the guidance right now from where we originally laid out the – when we realized that. But we're working with Barclays to understand that a lot better. Again, the top-line upfront revenue has been very, very strong. We are very happy of what we're seeing but we can't change that guidance.

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

With airplanes, sorry? Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think Mark, Savi's question was around not when they arrive but how long are they here for.

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. So, it's a fairly extended lease. Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Yeah. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, it's an extended lease. These airplanes will help us with Cuba, but also improving our sort of operational reliability and our spare count. And I think the other point that we haven't mentioned today, but the question I expect to get at some point is what if you won't and the ability I think between, I think I'm right, Mark, in saying between 2018 and 2022, 2023 we actually have 30 airplanes that are due to come off lease and so the ability during that cycle to potentially retire some of our older original airplanes. So, we do have a lot of flexibility as well. Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I just want to mention 2023, the Embraer E-190 start coming off of their original lease as well. So we do have good fleet flexibility going forward. Savanthi N. Syth - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Joseph DeNardi with Stifel. Joseph DeNardi, I apologize from Stifel. Joseph DeNardi - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Good morning. So, Robin, you talked about the importance of getting to positive PRASM or being able to sustain positive PRASM. Just wondering in an environment with fairly soft economic growth and I think what a lot of people see as excess industry capacity at least domestically, how do you model unit revenue assumptions for a plan it calls for high single-digit average annual ASM growth going forward? I mean, is there a rule of thumb that you use? It would seem like a high bar for you guys to be able to hit to sustain positive PRASM and grow at 9% a year? Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I appreciate the question and let me kind of look back and look forward if I may, and my friend Marty here can add if I miss something. But if you actually look back over the last five year – back to 2010, we've actually grown this airline in sort of mid to high, but mainly high single-digits through that entire period and right through the period of 2010 to 2015, we're also able to drive year-on-year positive unit revenue growth. So, I think we have a track record for doing that, and when I then overlay on top of that the really, really incredible positive RASM growth of Mint as we expand the Mint footprint. And as we really cycle into many of the self-help initiatives that we outlined in November 2014, all of which are tracking on or better than we had thought, then I think that gives us a lot of confidence that we can do…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Julie Yates with Credit Suisse. J. Yates - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Marty, a couple of questions on fare families. First, how should we think about when dynamic pricing starts to drive better contribution or better potential contribution based on your experience with, dynamic pricing on Even More? And then second, how has fare families impacted yields? It looks like there was a fair amount of deterioration quarter-on-quarter and I was just curious now that you have kind of a year of fare families, what's the relationship between fare families and – it has had on yields? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Hi, Julie. Thanks for the question. With respect to fare families, listen, we are very happy with how fare families has gone where the customer reaction has been good. Operationally, it's worked very well. I'm not in a position to update the guidance that we gave originally for the fare families benefit and the biggest reason is that we had already sort of assumed that we would transition into dynamic pricing. This is all part of the original plan. We're not making up as we go along. We had a very clear progression of what we wanted to follow. We're very happy with how it's worked out and looking forward to expanding it that much more. With respect to the impact on yields, to a certain extent, I'm not sure I see the relationship. I mean, I think that what we're seeing with respect to the overall yield environment is much more an industry macro environment than specifically tied to fare families. So, I don't think any of us looks at our fare family…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Thanks. Can you repeat what you said on the third quarter revenue outlook? And a bit about significant sequential improvement from the July run rate?

Mark D. Powers - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yes. I would be delighted to. Thank you. I'll just be very brief. Turning to revenue outlook, July RASM is expected to decrease 2.5% to 3% year-over-year. This would be the third consecutive month of sequential RASM improvement after May and June. July performance is positively impacted by decelerating capacity growth by JetBlue and easing comps. And I think this is the key sense. Beyond July, we expect meaningful sequential unit revenue improvement between the second and third quarters.

Duane Pfennigwerth - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Okay. So, I mean, is that to mean that you feel like August will be firmer than July and September will be firmer than August? And any color you can give about the split between PRASM and RASM within that would be helpful? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: All right. Yeah, Hi, Duane, thanks. And I would not agree with your comment about July versus September other than what we said in the script. We said July would be the best month, September would be the worst and August would be in between. And I appreciate that in the last call, we gave a little bit more guidance. I think it was more that people were little bit – I don't think people sort of understood what we saw out there. We felt like we should be a little more open than we have historically. I think, as you can appreciate, we are still a relatively late booking airline. So, it's really tough for us to give accurate guidance for these periods, three months and four months out, because we just don't have enough on the books to be really clear about it. And the worst thing for us to do would be to do anything misleading. With respect to what we're seeing, now the sequential improvements that what Mark talked about was specifically around the quarter, not about individual months.

Duane Pfennigwerth - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Okay. And then just to run this by you, I mean, if we look back at how this year has played out, capacity grew at a mid-teens clip in the first quarter, and maybe you disagree with this statement but revenue trends were pretty sloppy and it seemed like tough to predict. Now, we're into a period where your capacity growth rate is more mid-single digits, and it feels like it's firmer and you're going to be hopeful better forecasters of the revenue. So, number one, do you agree with that trend? And if so, how do we convert that thinking into this incremental order and a high-single digit growth rate, given what we learned this year? Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Duane. It's Robin. Thanks for the question. Also, again, you always find a different way to try and get us to guide the quarter. So, congratulations again. I think, look, we came on to the first half year with a very strong 2015. And so, we definitely had a elevated strong base. As we explained, I think on previous earnings call, the capacity was frontloaded into 2016 versus this year. So, obviously that created some unit revenue pressure. I don't think we had anymore challenge forecasting it than anybody else did. I mean, I think that we were – certainly saw some of the challenges to some of the later booking traffic. We had exposure obviously to markets like Puerto Rico and Colombia where we saw softness. So, I wouldn't entirely agree with your characterization. I think in terms of how does that square with elevated capacity, I go back to the answer I gave earlier, if you look back historically over a five-year to six-year period, we have constantly been able to drive high single-digit ASM increases and unit revenue increases. We feel even more confident about our ability to do that going forward because of some of the JetBlue specific initiatives like Mint, like the credit card, like the cabin restyling that we have announced and are executing to. And even with quarter one and quarter two and all the challenges we were able to expand margins as well. And when we look at the – when we look at 2016 versus 2015, we feel confident based on what we see here that we will have a margin expansion year-on-year.

Duane Pfennigwerth - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI.

Okay. Thanks for the time. Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your last question comes from the line of Dan McKenzie with Buckingham Research.

Dan J. McKenzie - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst

Hey. Thanks for squeezing me in guys. Legacy airlines are talking about rolling out an unbundled product in the back half of the year to offer Spirit type fares. And given the fare family approach, I wonder if you can talk about what this might or might not mean to JetBlue. Is the industries move to unbundle a potential revenue pressure that might be incremental or do you just sort of view it as not particularly material? Martin J. St. George - Executive Vice President-Commercial & Planning: Hi, Dan, it's Marty. Thanks for the question. Yeah, we certainly watch the industry trends with a lot of interest. But it's funny, I mean, I want to get back to what JetBlue was founded on and what we want to offer as a value proposition. Our goal is to offer the best product of any airline in North America at a very, very competitive price. And I think we've accomplished that over the last 16 years and I think we're all very proud of that. And I can certainly speak for myself, my first reaction to unbundle products and stripping the product down to take out all these individual elements is that we've competed with a product like that for many years as Spirit and we've competed with it very successfully, but not by matching it. I mean, we still want to make sure that when a customer walks on a JetBlue airplane, no matter where they sit in the airplane, they'll have the best experience of any airline. So, a strategy that sort of dumps that down and impacts that value proposition on the surface is not very attractive to us. But again, our job is to be responsive to customers. If it turns out that that's really what customers want I would never say that we're going to fight against the customer tide but it's not what we see right now. And again, I think with the experience that we've had competing with some of the ULCCs with those ultra unbundled products, we're very happy with how we compete with them now.

Dan J. McKenzie - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Very good. And then, Rob, and if I could come back to the international strategy just for a second here, and just moving beyond the regulatory complexity, it seemed to me at least there is two big hurdles to get investors comfortable with international strategy. And that's sufficient critical mass domestically in a plane that can capture sufficient revenue when pricing gets rough, as it always does. And so, I'm just wondering if you can just share a little bit more along those lines just with respect to how you're thinking about the core business and its ability to support that evolution? Robin Hayes - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. I think they are really good points, Dan, ones that we will have to get comfortable with before we – if and when we make any announcement, I mean, that's I think – again back to the thing I'd say to Hunter really which is closing it today just because of the option in the purchase agreement I know I think it's prudent to create that optionality for ourselves if we choose to take it. When we think about Europe and the potential opportunity, first of all, I would talk to the issue of relevance. I mean, when we first started talking to our corporate customers in markets like Boston and New York a few years ago, it was building out the domestic network. And, we're still very focused on doing that and that remains the priority. There are still some markets, LaGuardia is a good example. While – although we had Boston flights to JFK for many years, we didn't have them to LaGuardia, that's about to change. So there is definitely a point of relevance to corporate customers that they want you to be able…

Dan J. McKenzie - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks for the timing, guys.

Driss Belmadani - Manager-Investor Relations, JetBlue Airways Corp.

Management

That concludes your second quarter 2016 conference call. Thanks for joining us and have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Again, that concludes today's conference. Thank you all for your participation.